Rainy days and Sundays always get me down

The actual song title is "Rainy Days and Mondays. . " but I adapted it for my personal use.

Rainy days aren't what bothers me so much now as I sit and type this, though generally I do get a bit tetchy if there are too many of them and they block the sun and make my brain feel all serotonin deprived. I think for me at this stage in my life Sundays are what is irking me. Its not the day that's magical or unmagical, one day is like another. For me its about what the day used to symbolize and what it is now, which is a whole other thing. I don't even know if i can even take a stab at trying - how can i authentically corral all the mixed up, loose feelings and stray thoughts? I wish there was some sort of mythical wrangler who would do that for me. I often hesitate to write blogs like this. . but you all know that I periodically do - cuz you write what you know, right? I know that this is who I am. I am a person who has a need to be spiritual. It may turn others off. . it may encourage them to read such confessions but I am unashamed and make no excuses for expressing what's in my heart and my soul - not to mention my spirit. I think that people all have this 'trinity' within them - bear with me i mean no sacrelige. . body, mind, spirit.. . that's us - that's what we're made of. A lot of people I've met live with a fragmented 'trinity', cut off portions, withered components, even dead. . however you want to say. . they live without wholeness. You know, now that I think about this. . i don't think anyone's exempt.

I've felt wholeness before, but i've more often felt fragmented. I feel that way now. . flat, you know those cardboard likenesses that they make of people? I think a lot of people go through life feeling like a cardboard likeness of themselves. I used to pretend a lot when I was figuring out who i was. I feigned and fumbled my way through lots on the way to now. The older i get the less is feign. . honestly, i seldom whitewash or pretend or hide anything now - although if i sat and thought some more I could come up with enough to prove me a liar.

Sundays. . . so I am persistently confused with why i get so hung up on this day. I guess its decades of conditioning. My now self keeps saying "Every day is special. " Every day has the potential to be a day that honours God, a day in which i love other people, beautiful or not, good or bad, a day that makes me treasure breathing in and out without stopping, see all the awesomely see-worthy things that surround me - appreciate all my senses without being too familiar, like a kid does - all wide-eyed and open mouthed and jumping up and down like my grandson . This seismic shift in me has been a long time coming, and I am grateful for it, even though its brought destruction, as all seismic activity does. Its a destruction that has caused me more than even in my life to evaluate, step back, put my index finger over my closed lips and say "hmmm." The disruption feels all loose and jagged, like i've been walking on uneven ground. Its pretty much disrupted all my preconceived ideas, like "Its Sunday, therefore you do this, that and the other." or "You must do this in order to be 'good' ". "This is how you serve 'the Lord'." I think that mindset is a fractured trinity talking. . someone who's whole doesn't ritualize or formulize something so special like communion with the one you want to commune with. When I used to 'go to church' i so often, in fact very often felt like everything was a sham. . like the thing I most wanted, which was to have something real, you know? no faking, no hoops, numbness but an encounter with greatness. . nobody else's greatness except God's. I wanted to feel expectant. .i wanted everyone to feel expectant with me. . . like we would be wowed, see something inexplicable that would give us goosebumps and would help me to stop thinking incessantly about me, myself and i - if that could ever be possible. . i wanted to be able to feel other people's heart break and i wanted them to feel mine. I wanted to have acceptance and feel accepting back and i just so didn't want b.s. I wanted to feel like others had my back and i watched theirs. I desperately wanted to belong in the very best way to a good, wonderful, living, growing 'thing'. something that just makes sense, and feel the presence of love that writes no rules for me to follow and asks nothing from my hand but softly demands my trinity in full, nothing held back. I've never had that. . in a church or growing up.

Last night i sat and watched the last half of this old movie with Michael Keaton and Nicole Kidman. I was alone in the house. . sitting in Rob's recliner with a blanket up to my chin - watching the story of love and loss and change and family reconciliation and community and support and extremes. . love, appreciation for life that only came about in the pall of death. I sobbed out loud and cried until i gave myself a headache and it was way beyond just the characters, it was even way beyond putting myself in their spot. . . ever notice that's the only way we can ever feel others' pain, by imagining our own?! the self will never die. . . it was just huge, i cried for it all, for me, for my unsupportive, rejecting parents, for me and my sisters and all that we endured, for 'church' and 'church people' in their grave/ruts and for people who need to be whole but aren't because nobody's telling them how to be whole. . and for disasters and death and geez, the whole sh@# load of it. . and for Sundays, what they were and what they are. . and how will i ever be the same? and do i even want to be? and for me and God -- because He's so beautiful and i'm shabby and contemptible.